Meeting the Cattle

"HEY GIRLS, COME GIRLS! KA-YAAAAAA KA-YAAAAAA KA-YAAAAAA!" Jimmy shouted across the large field near the bush as he dumped buckets of "chop", a mix of oats full of nutrients.

Slowly the heifers and calves made their way across until one black cow started shouting herself, her loud calls echoing, telling everyone that we were dumping oats. It then looked like a stampede with red, white, and black cows racing across the field, with loud splashing sounds coming from all the standing rain. A white cow beat everyone to the oats and greedily stuck her face in several piles of them, white dust blowing out of her mouth at each one, her long tongue working fast licking up as many oats as possible. The other girls caught up to her and they started fighting with each other over the oats. The cows were racing in between piles until most the herd had arrived. There were over 80 of them, heifers, their calves, one young bull, and a lucky steer named Bar-B-Q who escaped last fall's round up to the auction house.
"He's been eating for free!" Jimmy complained, since steers already have their balls chopped off and don't add to the herd in any way other than cash for beef. Him and his dad kept dumping buckets of oats on the field that I pushed toward the tailgate. "The young bull probably has bred all the girls already, it's been too wet to get the grown bulls out here. They are already a month late."

I already met the bulls, there are five others. The two big ones have a huge field all to themselves and have spent their days lazily grazing, impatient I'm sure to meet up with their heifers that graze out by the bush. One is a red angus, the other is a black angus. The black one is a scary beast, the toughest bull here. We gave him several hundred yards one day when out in the same field with him. The red one lost half his balls last winter because the guy taking care of him didn't put enough straw in with him to keep them warm, he will be sold "down the road" this year, since he might not be able to do his job of breeding anymore. No one eats for free on this ranch, except maybe Bar-B-Q, but even his time will come to pay up. The other three bulls are next to the barn with a huge pile of fresh hay everyday to eat. The black one has the other herd of heifers, and there are two young replacements that have another year to go before they get to help breed.

The other herd of heifers are Jimmy's most beautiful cows, and he is very proud of the pretty young ladies. They have been grazing by the barn with their calves, about 50 maybe in all. We had to chase them my first day here since they opened a gate to another pasture on their own. All the calves were in a big group and me and Jimmy chased them first to the distress of the mothers trapped in another field. They all started shouting at us, a very scary sound indeed with so many raised voices. I thought they might have a stampeded and run right through the fence and over us to get to their calves. It all worked out, and they followed us to a new pasture to eat. He had to chase one cow far, and I told him later that he needed a horse. His dad almost died on a horse several years ago when he was dragged by it for a long way, so they haven't kept horses around the place. He pointed out a few prize worthy heifers, said he is working to make his whole herd look like them. He is working to add more heifers to the herd, and wants to separate the herds by their color once he has enough for three herds.

There is one orphan red angus calf that he named Angela after me. It rained so hard that all of her smell ran off of her and her mother wouldn't accept her anymore. They found her alone and skinny out by the bush and brought her into the barn to hand raise her on powdered supplement milk. She was lucky that she didn't end up timber wolf food. Every morning and evening I go out to the barn and give her milk. She calls "MAAAAAAAA!" when I come in and greedily sucks down her milk. When it is almost gone, she goes into a panic and I have to fight her a little to give back the nipple bucket. Her long tongue grabs my shirt and pants, desperately searching for more milk as she slimes me. She again yells "MAAAAAAAA!" and I go out and pick fresh grass for her. Lately I have been putting her on the home-made harness Jimmy's dad mad for her and have been dragging her outside. She kicks, pulls and falls down the whole way, but has been learning to follow me. I've been letting her suck my fingers, and she trusts me more afterward saying a calm "Ma". Yes I am her Ma, since her own rejected her.

One day Angela was out grazing by a gate were the heifers were. The red ones started to get concerned at her baby cries and kept coming up and sniffing her. When they saw she wasn't their calf, the would go on grazing. The black bull by the barn called out to the ladies to get their attention, then started grunting and breathing heavy like a horny prank caller. A few cows were flirting back, but lost interest with him being so far away and went on with their grazing. He spun around in his pin a few times, fed up with his sexual frustration I'm sure. I was worried he might even try to jump out like he has done before to reach his ladies. The other two young bulls strained their heads to get a look at the heifers, then one mounted the other bull until he was quickly bucked off.Bruno looks lustfully at his pretty heifers nearby.